CC's not so fine WINE diary

[CrealCritter]

Yeast are such interesting bacteria. Anyone care to guess what color this red clover wine will finish out as? I'm glad I put a label on it because I wouldn't recognize it after one day of the yeast working at cleaning house.

Day 0

Day 1

 

[CrealCritter]

Easy Apple Juice Wine 1.105 (approx 15% ABV)

Dollar General has 1/2 gallon apple juice on sale for $1.00. After looking at the ingredients (filtered water, apple juice concentrate and ascorbic acid) we determined this stuff is just right to ferment. So my son in law and I bought all the had at the local dollar general store (18 bottles) it's 1.055 on the hydrometer right out if the bottle but for my 3 gallon batch I added 3 lbs of sugar to bring the gravity to 1.105.

My son in law is making up 5 gallons and his will be cider, he is not adding any sugar to his, so it'll be lower gravity/lower ABV. about 8.5% when done.

Wine Recipe ---> https://winemaking.jackkeller.net/request200.asp

My Ingredients (per gallon)
1 gal Clover Valley dollar general bottled apple juice (2 64oz bottles)
1 lb granulated sugar (approx 15% ABV)
1 tsp acid blend
1 tsp pectic enzyme
1/4 tsp tannin
1-1/2 tsp yeast nutrient
1 pkt Champagne wine yeast

Super easy and cheap.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Apple wine - sounds great!

 

[CrealCritter]

Cranberry is such a pain in the a55. spewing wine into the air locks, I gave it plenty of head space for secondary ferment. So it shouldn't do this, but apparently this batch of cranberry has a mind of it own. I just hope there's not to much of a mess in the morning.

Edit...
I decided on a different approach, why fight it? Clean rags soaked in sanitizer and a rubber band over the bung hole. Hopefully it'll calm down in a couple of days and I can bung and air lock them then. This is the first wine I've had go crazy during secondary ferment like this.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Hope it works out for ya....stoopid cranberries!

 

[CrealCritter]

I decided I'm going to mull my apple juice wine. I'm shooting for a Apple Pie flavor by adding 2 whole cinnamon sticks, 4 whole allspice, 2 whole nutmeg, 1/4 tsp grated Ginger root per gallon during the secondary ferment. All I'll have to do is warm it up when I'm ready to serve.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

That sounds good!

 

[CrealCritter]

Yeah... Red Raspberry is bottled.

 

[CrealCritter]

The hardest part of making wine, is drinking the wine you made. It's a really hard job but someone has to do it .

Cheers

 

[frustratedearthmother]

It's a really hard job but someone has to do it .

You could probably find volunteers for that so you wouldn't have to, lol.